In the wake of the scandal over the IRS's targeting of conservative groups, and months after the IRS's release of embarassing Gilligan's Island and Star Wars training video parodies, a TIGTA investigation into excessive IRS spending on conferences resulted in Friday's release of this IRS training video:

TrackBack URL for this entry:$MTTrans>

Comments

Everybody benefits when IRS employees are allowed to exhibit a sense of humor. Low-budget morale building like this is not waste.

Posted by: AMTbuff | Jun 1, 2013 4:03:03 PM

I have to disagree. When we are in an era of trillion dollar deficits, all non-critical government spending should be slashed immediately. No more conferences in Hawaii - you can find somewhere suitable on the mainland. No more social events that require outside "experts," they can have an ice cream social and all take a break from work while schmoozing, or watch a movie together.

If the private sector feels the pain, then the government sure should as well. Maybe if they felt the pain like we did they would pay more attention to how they waste our money. I don't get dance lessons at my job.

Posted by: Todd | Jun 2, 2013 7:24:58 AM

Agree with AMTbuff, disagree with Todd. This silly IRS video was filmed in New Carrollton, MD, not Hawaii. The quality demonstrates no outside expert got involved, and that the cost was not significant. Apples to apples, nothing wrong with a team building exercise like this.

Posted by: Jake | Jun 2, 2013 1:27:13 PM

It looks like they paid someone to give them dance lessons, because I sure as hell hope that barely literate woman does not work for the IRS. That's an outside expert who cost money. The Hawaii reference was a general one, not specific to the IRS - the 9th circuit judicial conference was recently held there at taxpayer expense.

Our country is broke and sinking fast. There should be NO non-essential spending by government at any level. But I am just a crazy libertarian who is worried about our future, so don't mind me.

Maybe if the IRS had done a little less team building and a few more training sessions on ethics and their duty to be apolitical, we would not have this mess on our hands...

Posted by: Todd | Jun 2, 2013 6:03:50 PM

If you work at Wakmart you get a dance lesson, give me a squiggly whoopi

Posted by: Herman Mounster | Jun 2, 2013 9:57:17 PM

People have a problem with this? That's hilarious. There's so much waste to cut in the amount of money that goes to military, medical care, irrelevant scientific research and education. These people work hard, perform a thankless and necessary job, and are having fun. They should be congratulated.